Teacher Rose Anne Easaw addressing the school assembly of Sekolah Menegah Inggeris/Kebangsaan, Yong Peng in 1977. Standing behind her is the writer.

It seems like a huge task to restore Malaysians' standard
of English but it can be done if we put our hearts to it.

IN November 1996, a Saudi Arabian Airlines 747 jet collided
with an Air Kazakhstan cargo plane near New Delhi, killing 349 crew and
passengers.

Investigations later revealed that the accident was partly
caused by the Kazakh pilots' insufficient fluency in English in understanding
the instructions given by air traffic controllers.

Needless to say, this was only one of the several plane
accidents which had been caused by the pilots’ poor command of English.

Today, the rules of the International Civil Aviation
Organisation require all pilots to be fluent in English. So just imagine what
will happen if our Malaysian air traffic controllers and pilots are not
sufficiently proficient in English. This will no doubt bring dire consequences.

English is not just the lingua franca of civil aviation, but
of the world. In this Internet age, it is also the lingua franca of the Web if
we want to stay connected with the world, and avail ourselves to the colossal
amounts of online information.

In the 1960s and 1970s, we Malaysians were credited for
having a supreme command of the English language in the region.

Then, we had no lack of personalities like R. Ramani, a
former Permanent Representative of Malaysia to the United Nations and president
of the Malaysian Bar.

His impeccable command of English, both written and spoken,
often impressed the world body and made our nation shine on the international
stage.

Alas today, you and I know the sad state of English among
Malaysians. I pray that we will not reach a time when all our air traffic controllers
and pilots have to be expatriates because of our horrendous standard of English.

As for me, learning and improving one’s command of English is
also very much a personal effort.

The government and teachers can only help to a
certain extent. A lot of it still depends on one’s determination to learn and
improve by constantly speaking and writing the language.

I attended an English primary school in Yong Peng. In the
1970s, it was still a rural village.

During my time, all subjects were already taught in Bahasa
Malaysia except for Mathematics and Science before a total switch to Bahasa
Malaysia in the 1970s. The switch then only involved the national schools and
not the vernacular schools.

Entering Form Four, if one chose to study in the Science
stream, it was as good as studying in an English school because General
Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, General Science, Pure Science, Chemistry,
Physics and Biology were taught in English.

For those who chose the Arts stream, subjects like History
and Geography were taught in Bahasa Malaysia.

In the 1970s, Yong Peng was still a rural village. As my
parents were illiterate, learning English, particularly understanding the
English grammar, was a great struggle.

The problem was compounded because my classmates,
particularly those from Chinese primary schools, preferred to speak Mandarin.

Despite having spent one year in the Remove Class, most of
them were still very weak in English.

Consequently, we would first think in Chinese before forming
our sentences in English, resulting in many of us speaking and writing broken
English.

This explains the origins of ‘where got?’, ‘some more who?’,
‘some more what?’, ‘you go where?’ and ‘you eat already?’

I still recall with fun, for example, some of them calling
“godson” as “dry son” since in Chinese, a godson is called gan er zi!

Looking back, I understand now the frustration of some
English teachers who, at times, had to resort to using a little bit of Hokkien
or Mandarin when explaining the English grammar and vocabulary.

Of course, the
moment this was done in class, many faces would quickly brighten up indicating
that they now understood what the teachers were talking about!

I am, therefore, not surprised if teachers in rural areas
today have to resort to use, perhaps extensively, Mandarin and Bahasa Malaysia
when explaining English grammar and vocabulary.

It is, therefore, fallacious for some to identify only Malay
students as being weak in English.

During my secondary school days, the main challenge came
whenever there was an inter-school meet at district or state level.

I observed many of my schoolmates would feel inferior and
inadequate when mixing with students from better schools due to the poor command
of English.

As the head prefect, the duty fell upon me whenever a school
representative was asked to address the occasion.

I must say there were several occasions when I was laughed at
because of grammatical mistakes or pronouncing some words incorrectly. But that
did not deter me from continuously wanting to better my English.

I guess being laughed at and ridiculed was the best learning
method because after suffering from the embarrassment, one would not possibly
repeat the mistakes.

At this juncture, I must pay tribute to three of my English
teachers Yap Teong Hoon, Rose Anne Easaw and Lau Yen Fung whose passion for
teaching had given hope to a rural student like me to build a strong command of
English.

I still remember the day before I had to deliver my speech as
the President of the Interact Club before a group of Rotarians from Batu Pahat,
and Easaw, as the teacher-in-charge, spent hours helping me with the delivery, taking
pains to teach me how to pronounce words like ‘sincerely’, ‘enthusiasm’ and
‘conscientiously’ correctly.

In those days, it took me at least five hours to finish an
English newspaper because of my poor vocabulary.

I then started having a little book, jotting down all the new
words I had learnt and used it whenever an occasion arose.

I would always look at the book again, even waking up in the
middle of the night if I had forgotten the meaning of a word.

Parents these days must make it a habit for their children to
read English newspapers because it is indubitable that this is an indispensable
tool to learn English.

Two books were of great help to me: Word Power Made Easy
by Norman Lewis and Common Mistakes In English by T.J. Fitikides.

Joining the English Youth Fellowship of the St Stephen's
Church in Yong Peng as well as the singing of hymns and studying the Bible with
English-speaking adults also helped immensely.

It can be quite distressing at times to notice that even some
senior lawyers are not able to differentiate between simple pairs of words, such
as borrow and lend, come and go, principle and principal, and dependent and
dependant.

The other common mistake committed by lawyers and journalists
is the word ‘counsel’ which means ‘an advocate or advocates’ which must be used
with a singular or plural verb. Hence, we do not describe two advocates as two
counsels, but two counsel!

But nothing can be more stressful than to see lawyers
incapable of grasping basic grammar concepts, especially with when to use the
basic form of verb.

Take for example, ‘eat’, ‘ate’ and ‘eaten’. ‘Eat’ is the
basic verb. ‘Ate’ is past tense and ‘eaten’ is past participle.

Forget for a moment the various grammatical terms used, one
must forever remember to use the basic form of verb after - to, let, can,
cannot, could, could not, may, may not, might, might not, must, must not, shall,
shall not, should, should not, will, will not, would, would not, does, does not,
do, do not, did, did not and ought to.

As for past participle, it comes after –
be, being, not being, been, not been, am, am not, is, is not, are, are not, was,
was not, were, were not, has, has not, have, have not, had and had not.

Similarly, it is most disappointing to notice a sharp decline
in the standard of English among our students and teachers in local universities
these days, particularly law students and law lecturers.

A few years back, I was
shocked to discover law examination questions set by a local university
containing many grammatical mistakes. Of course, if law students these days are
also judged on their command of English when answering examination questions, I
think many would flunk!

On this note, I have written before the importance of lawyers
having a good command of English which is both in their personal interests as
well as in the national interest. (see High time for a new Bar,
The Sunday Star, February 6, 2011)

I must add that grammatical mistakes committed in legal
documents can have serious implications. Take for example, the Freedom of
Information (State of Selangor) Enactment which was published in the Government
Gazette on July 2, 2010.

Clause 7(1) states: “Every department shall response to the
application ”. The grammatical mistake is obviously the word “response” which is
a noun.

As explained above, one must use the basic form of verb after
the modal verb “shall”. In this case, the proper word is “respond”. It follows,
if the enactment had been passed by the Selangor State Assembly without any
amendment, this mistake can only later be corrected by way of an amended
enactment.

Finally, I have now come to the most important point, that
is, it did make a huge difference to me during my time when Mathematics and
Science were taught in English simply because students had more opportunities to
use and exposure to the language. I, therefore, support the call that these two
subjects should continue to be taught in English, at least in selected schools.

It is pivotal that our education system must not be allowed
to progress at the pace of the slowest learners if we want to achieve
excellence.

It is illogical to say that we must revert to teaching
Science and Mathematics in Bahasa Malaysia in all schools because students in
rural areas are not able to cope with it or compete with those in urban areas.

If we do that, we are only perpetuating mediocrity and not
moving towards excellence for students to have a chance to become world-renowned
doctors, scientists, engineers and lawyers.

It will also be the greatest disservice to the nation to
brand such students who want to learn Mathematics and Science in English as
‘elitist’!

While it appears to be a gargantuan task to restore
Malaysians' standard of English to the glorious days of the 1960s and 1970s, we
must not lose hope.

The elixir to the problem is simple just let our hearts and
minds follow the old true saying, where there is a will, there is a way!

*This is the expanded version of the article published
in The Star on April 11, 2011.